Temporary Muse
by xheartmehorrid
Summary: ( A Naraku x Kikyou fanfic, AU. )
1. Beginning of the End

"**Temporary Muse"**

**Disclaimer: I do not own InuYasha, or any of the characters from the series. **

A NarakuxKikyou fanfic. AU.

**A/N**: Nn. I'm thinking this'll be part of a series of really short one shots that make up a larger story.. Mostly NarakuxKikyou based, with a few other pairings inbetween and an uncertain plot written by "Sing for Absolution" on instant repeat, lack of sleep, and my suffocating love for this particular couple. Oh, and some parts of this particular fic are accompanied by Muse lyrics. D

Read and review, plzkthnx I'll love you for eternity.

**He brought her over to the house again today.**

I don't know why; maybe because he knows I hate it and he loves to torment me, to see me wince

when cheerful, girlish giggling floats up from those perfectly kissable, perpetually smiling, glossy

cigarette lips of hers, because I have a headache and the sound of her voice destroys my precious

atmosphere. That's probably why he does it. He's not generally spiteful but he holds grudges for eternities, and I'm at fault, he didn't let me forget it, telling me with shattered passion and tears in his eyes holding pieces of my face in them, pieces of us, his whole world, broken down. Destruction. My fault. It's my fault that he and I are nothing, and it is my fault that he is now with Kagome, who he brought over to the house again today.

I brought this stupid brat's visits upon myself, I guess. He lets himself in with the extra key I so willingly gave him, never thinking I'd be laying on the couch reading the same two lines in a novel and not seeing the words, smoking, of course, on the verge of sleep, never thinking he'd strut in like he owns the place in his ridiculous red t-shirt and soiled jeans that he wears every single waking moment of his life, her on his arm, a pretty schoolgirl wearing a short skirt and a huge smile. Always. And then they come over to talk to me; have a seat, yeah, whatever, how are you? They're always perfectly fine.

Touching. Holding hands, caressing, leaning against each other while I subconsciously scoot farther and farther away with this unexplained rage inside me growing and mounting like the background music in some cheap horror film right before someone gets eaten by the inevitable monster. I really hate that they're always touching, always happy. Her smile is killing me.

I think he knows that.

And I'm almost positive he likes it.

And I can't bring myself to say 'no'. Not once. No 'get out', or 'I'm busy', because as they can see for themselves I'm not really busy and I have no life now.. because InuYasha _was _my world.

And now she's his. And I'm stuck in this gray, cluttered apartment with nothing left to look forward to but endless conversations with no point or destination or sincerity and these constant visits that will surely be the end of my sanity; not a dream or a hope left in my empty little head. Nothing. I'm bitter, drained, dead on the inside, there's nothing in here. I wonder why I'm alive, sometimes. Nothing's fueling me. Nothing's pushing me on.

That's how I got into drugs. Or why, rather.

It was a summer night, and for the first time in weeks I'd removed myself from the couch I'd been almost surgically attached to since the breakup, each deadweight limb sending slivers of pain and protest throughout my now-mobile body, the empty one, to do something more than get a bottle of water and immediately slip back into my comatose state. Kagome and InuYasha had taken their leave hours ago; better things to do, no doubt. She left her magazine on the coffee table. Maybe she thought it was a good deed-- leaving me a little treat so the next time she came I could be flipping through it with enthusiasm, a devious smirk written all over my lips, a little girl-to-girl secret that didn't make much sense at all.

I sneered at the thought of even such petty bonding before closing the door and meandering the halls, for a while, getting used to movement again, and real breathing; air, not leftover cigarette smoke that never quite died out. The inky blackness of the sky was a welcome sight indeed when I hit those city streets again, sidewalks lit up like a miniature Milky Way.

It was. . . a nightclub, where I began my downward spiral and met the second 'love of my life'.

I stood outside in a pool of multicolored lights, staring up at the well-lit letters above played out for all to see. "The Underworld". Cliché. Then again, thinking back to its inhabitants, the obscene devil's spawn wannabe children, clad in black leather, dancers with skin whiter than my own, black lipstick making for obsidian kisses and bruises that look like smudges in the lighting, girls with green hair and chains from ear to ear. "The Underworld" was really quite fitting.

I don't want to know what they thought of me when I entered.

In fact, I'd like to think they didn't at all, that I just floated by them like a nameless, shapeless shadow; but they had to. The way they looked at me with eyes like deep ravines of haunted memories or opposite black voids-- I was a whole new species to the Underworld crowd.

Just like Naraku was absolutely alien to me.

I was lost, and I didn't want to dance.

I just blended in with the bright paint on the wall, chipping away and adorned lavishly with posters advertising this band or that, this new club or a different one, some of the new ones torn away to reveal older posters. He and his group were talking over in the opposite corner, and I watched out of sheer boredom-- palms around my lips and eyes downcast in seductive blunt disregard, with black hair enshrouding a porcelain not-quite-Underworld face, unmarred with the liquid ebony paint this bunch called makeup. Our eyes met.

If two infernos have ever spilled over into each other to create a more noxious blaze, then it was at that very moment, his mouth frozen in mid-speech and I, indifferent, returning the look.

Shock quickly morphed into ugly, beautiful confidence that lit his pouting cupid lips with a canine smirk, and he approached me, the questioning gazes of his friends following his every move like he was their lifeblood and their Jesus Christ, god forbid he move an inch without giving them at _least_ a head's up.

Yeah, but he was. He was a nightclub Messiah.

Naraku.


	2. That Voodoo That You Do

He stood over me like some dark, lovely illusion, white and black shadow swirling and dancing behind him. Motion bleeding, faster and faster, and he and I were the only solid things that existed at that point in time. The only things that seemed real in the Underworld opium dream cloud that surrounded us both.

He smirked and leaned down toward me, palming the wall and the torn posters, lustrous black eyes locked so deeply into mine that I feared I'd never be able to see anything else, that I could never break the gaze.

"I've never seen you around here before," He began. Cool, slow.

"I've never been around here before."

"I see. . ."

His calculated beginning was broken off by a young girl's hand on his arm, squeezing it affectionately. He - and I - glanced up to see a young woman with short black hair, wearing hooker clothes and insistently fingering her tongue ring, as if urging this dark, dangerous stranger of mine to come out and play.

I couldn't do much more than just stare and blink, feeling completely idiotic to even have been speaking with whom I figured was this woman's boyfriend, lost in the throbbing beat of a nightclub I didn't belong in. Nothing but a dust particle floating over by the wall to be carelessly flicked away by long, black fingernails, which the girl was chewing nervously now, whispering in heated discussion with the God of the gothic hoards.

"Leave." He ended it sharply, brushing her off with not so much as a grunt of further

acknowledgement. She scowled, her anger showing as clearly on her pale face

as his current disinterest in her.

She hadn't noticed me up until then, observing as usual, the bitter wallflower; but when she finally did, whirling around in a fury on her four inch heels, feeling like a factory reject as she sought comfort in the mass of tangled, dancing bodies, she _really _noticed me.

At first her eyes only widened at the sight of a fresh new face. Then something else registered. It was hate at first sight. No; second sight.

"God, Naraku," she spat bitterly before turning to leave, "I can't believe you're screwing this trash."

She disappeared, devoured by the writhing masses.

We were both quiet for a moment.

Then his gaze came to rest on me again, a smirk once more lighting the corners of his sensual mouth. "Don't mind her," he said casually, "she's just jealous."

His face moved carefully, dangerously closer to mine. His breath on my neck was toxic; the blaze in his eyes was toxic; everything about him, noxious and lovely and alluring, a drug to be used. And abused.

" . . . . After all, we don't get many girls like you in this place."

"Oh?" I questioned, playing the same naïve, innocent girl card I'd used with InuYasha so long ago. _No_, I scolded myself. _don't think about InuYasha now._ "And what kind of girl am I?"

"Beautiful." He whispered, one elongated finger sliding slowly over the arch of my neck. He smiled. ". . . Let's get out of here."

My head screamed NO.

My heart wasn't really sure.

But inevitably, my mouth said, "yes."

And we were flung headlong from the suffocating, smothering atmosphere of "The Underworld" back onto the city streets outside. He had me by the wrist; pulling me along as we ran across the street, and I gasped, confused but excited, having no idea where we might be going- and honestly, I didn't even care.

And we didn't wait for the signal to turn green.

We just dodged past all the cars, coming at us with their blinding lights, honking their horns like there was no tomorrow.

And we didn't care. We didn't care.


	3. The Waitress

I was out of breath when I collapsed into the squeaky wooden chair in the diner, Naraku sitting in one just like it opposite of me with a devil's grin. My heart was pounding, my lungs threatening to break in half as they forced the eatery's distilled air into my throat, and my legs burned from all the running we had done. Reckless.

It felt as though we had jogged the entire city two times around. And the only reason for it was that he wanted to bring me _here_.

"What's this?" I asked finally, having caught my breath.

"It's a diner." He smirked, glancing over the menu. I mentally kicked myself for sounding so stupid.

"I've never been here before.."

"What's your name?" He asked abruptly, gaze flickering upward from the laminated booklet that listed every cheap item that they fried up and served on a bed of French fries and paper towels there. Somehow the question seemed sharp, almost cold.

God, this man was intimidating as hell.

". . . .Kikyou," I answered softly, smiling at him. "And you're Naraku."

"Yes." He leaned over the table, the warmth of his nearness flooding the perpetual cold InuYasha's lack of touch had somehow left me with. "And Kikyou, there are a lot of places you've never been before, . . . .that I will take you to."

I could just tell that this was going to be a bumpy ride.

A lithe young woman clad in the usual waitress uniform stepped delicately over to our table, long, brown hair swept over her eyes, tied up with a fiery orange ribbon; thick, pink clots of eyeshadow were caked on. "What will you be having today. . . ."

Her eyebrows furrowed as she stared at her two odd customers, sentence severed immediately for her to make this evaluation.

". . .Mister. . .Naraku?" I almost swore I saw her jaw drop and hit the dirty, tiled floor. "Naraku!" she hissed, slamming her small notepad on the table while paying no mind at all to me as she grabbed one long tendril of his black hair, yanking his head painfully toward her own. "You bastard, I haven't seen you in forever."

The hair was released, falling neatly back to his shoulder. He seemed not to mind the offending action.

They both smiled widely. "Hello again, Sango. This is my new friend, Kikyou."

His voice lowered to a threatening whisper. "Be polite and introduce yourself, Sango dear."

The waitress turned and looked me over, dissecting me with her eyes as all of Naraku's lady friends seemed to do. "New friend? Yeah right." She winked at him, grinning. "You and I both know all too well what you do with your 'new friends'."

She extended a dainty hand to me, her nails layered with pink shimmer polish that was chipping away fleck by sparkling fleck.

"Hey," she said in a casual, friendly tone as I shook her hand timidly, confused over whether or not she, too, was one of his more intimate lady friends. My eyes wandered to her nail polish again. Maybe it some sort of obsessive compulsive thing- hell, maybe even just obsessive - but to see the clear nail peaking out from beneath smooth chips of bright, glittery polish, the entire paint ruined by the absence of just ONE little piece, made me want to grit my teeth and run all the way home for my nail kit.

"Hey." I finally answered, realizing they were both waiting for my response.

"You should come over and let me give you a manicure sometime," I blurted as an afterthought, smiling up in her direction.

She turned back to Naraku, absently picking up her little notepad from the table, removing the ballpoint pen from behind her triple-pierced ear. "She's cool," She said quietly, only to him, although I could hear her perfectly from right across the table. "You can keep her."

Shuffling over to stand beside the table again, she licked the tip of her black pen and asked professionally, "What will you be having today?"


	4. To the Stranger's House We Go

Sango returned to our table many times that night, each time with a plate crowded with some new sugary treat for Naraku to inhale. He could hardly muffle new orders between the thick clots of whipped cream, the round, glistening cherries, thick crusts and oozing globs of cream fillings that filled every cavern of his mouth so completely I feared his throat would clog and my 'semi-date' might fall over and die on the dirty diner floor with only that weird girl from "The Underworld" as a witness.

And Sango, too. She'd start screaming and chewing her chipping pink nails. Obsessively, I imagined each individual shimmering fleck falling, falling off of her imperfect fingers.

I was letting my imagination run wild. I took a deep breath, another sip of my Coke, and leaned across the table. "What's your secret?" I asked, watching him pause, something fluffy and drizzled with chocolate coating his fingertips that he then carefully licked clean before giving me his attention.

He smirked. "Which one?"

"You're so thin. But. . ." I made a vague gesture toward the cluttered table.

"I know," he said, shrugging one shoulder. "I inhale this shit like I weigh 600 hundred pounds. I need the sugar."

"You're practically snorting it." I took another swallow of Coke.

His grin only widened as he leaned closer to me, a fall of wispy raven hair hiding both of our faces from Sango's prying eyes, his lips barely brushing my cheek as he whispered, "I snort a lot of things, Kikyou."

Just then said waitress arrived with an unbelievably long bill that she waved in front of his face, a war flag raging battle with his wallet, the scrap of paper she was pretty sure would bump up her paycheck this week. "Here's the check, Naraku." She grinned as she delicately laid it on the table, the corners of it peeking out from underneath a piece of half-eaten cherry pie.

He sighed and bit his lower lip almost adorably ( I say almost because it is extremely difficult for people such as Naraku to seem even slightly disarming ) as he fumbled in his pocket for a while, pulling out a wad of cash. "This should cover it, Sango dear."

She grabbed the roll of money, shoving it in her pocket with no intention of ever putting it in the cash register. "Oh my god," she said, after having put the money away, "You and your friend need to come by the house some time. I'm living with Miroku now-- he's so loaded. We can all shoot up together."

She turned to smile at me, "And you can give me that manicure you were talking about." Brown eyes wandered over my pale forearms. She grabbed me by the wrist, examining them. I glanced at Naraku questioningly, but he was watching Sango.

"You have amazing veins." She said finally, dropping my arm back down to the table.

"We'll definitely get together sometime," Naraku said abruptly, standing. I did the same. "I've got your number." She nodded.

I followed him in silence as we left the diner, Sango's figure blurred behind the foggy window glass advertising some new deep-fried dish or another, growing more and more distant until she was nothing. The streets were filled with cars and multi-colored lights; and it began to dawn on me that I didn't know where the hell I was, and we didn't have a ride.

"Shit." I cursed out loud. Naraku put his arm around me.

I didn't even have enough energy to shrug it off. On the way there, I'd been on fire. It was like I was high on this dark, beautiful nightclub stranger, and now I was coming down.

_Oh my god, _I thought to myself with an audible moan, _he's going to take me back to his apartment and strangle me with my underwear._

"You wanna come back to my place?" He asked confidently, like he knew what my answer would be before I answered. This man had a fantastic ego.

And I had horrible judgment, and enough leftover jealousy to influence that judgment.

"Yeah, sure." I said, leaning into him. I put the whole image of me lying dead on his mattress out of my head, making room for more jealous thinking.

InuYasha and Kagome were supposed to be coming over for dinner that night.

They were in for a big surprise.


	5. It's Dynomite!

**AN: Okay. I just remembered to change the rating to R. D Now don't stop reading, it's not going to turn into a lemon or anything.**

**Or so I think. D Thanks for reminding me to change the rating, Kaze Kitsune.**

The walk had run me ragged. From the diner, around the entire city, through each and every dark and dangerous back alley, in and out of what seemed to be about twenty different parking lots, up flights of stairs and down numerous hallways, until finally the door swung open to a large, sprawling apartment. I collapsed on the couch.

Not once did we take the bus.

"What do you think?" He asked, gesturing towards the nicely decorated but still very cluttered living room. I lifted my head from couch cushion. To be honest, I wasn't thinking very much at all.

"It's nice," I sighed.

And then I got a good glimpse of the carpet. It was littered with hypodermic needles. My first thought was _holy shit, he's going to inject me with something so I'll pass out. I'm gonna be a rape victim. Oh my god, he's going to kill me. I should be having dinner with InuYasha and Kagome._ But then he delicately sank to the floor, taking one of them in his hand.

"You look worn out, Kikyou." He said to me, grinning. "I know just the thing to get you going again."

My eyes widened. No, they popped out my head. If I was usually pale, my fast must have looked absolutely ghostly at that point. I couldn't control myself. I was shaking. I couldn't breath. I was in some handsome stranger's apartment, and he was going to chain me to the bedpost and chop me into bite-sized pieces.

I could just imagine InuYasha standing over what was left of me, holding HER hand. "That's so gross," she would say. He would agree with her. "Yeah, Kikyou never could keep anything clean." And then they'd start making out. I'd blanch in my grave.

"Do you hear that?"

He immediately jerked around, paranoid. "Hear what?"

"That's the blood draining from my face." I covered my head with a pillow. "If you're some psychopath murderer rapist, I demand a last phone call."

He only laughed, tossing back his head so that all that thick, raven-colored hair fell down his back, neat and beautiful. "I wouldn't hurt you," came the solemn words once he'd gotten over the humor of it all. The way he looked me directly in the eye when he talked to me made me really believe everything he said.

I was such a fool.

"Look at you." He put his hand against my face. I shivered. "You're so beautiful. I only want to help you." Once again, he lifted the needle and rolled up his sleeve to reveal a pale arm trimmed with lean muscle. "Like this."

The tar-like substance inside the syringe slowly disappeared below the surface of his skin, and he closed his eyes. It had to be some kind of drug.

His dark eyes fluttered for a bit before shooting wide open, a huge smile breaking out all over his face. "It's heaven," He could hardly contain himself. "It's amazing. Just do it like I did, Kikyou."

He handed me a clean needle with the same thing inside. I was shaking all over. "What is it?" I could feel my voice quivering.

"It's heaven." He repeated, lying back on the bed of needles and paper that littered the floor. "It's the best shit."

I poked it into my forearm, wincing.

My head reeled. For a moment it burned, and I felt sick; I thought to myself _why would someone want to do this? This is so nasty. I'm never trying this again._ But then it started changing, smooth, slow, from nausea into bliss. I didn't feel like I was in my own body anymore.

Everything felt different. I ran my fingers along the arm of the couch, the needle still sticking out of my skin. My senses exploded.

Turning to look at Naraku ( who was lying on the floor ) I tugged at my shirt, grinning. "There's creepy crawlies crawling all over me." We both howled with laughter.

And then everything got quiet.

We were both totally, completely relaxed. "Naraku," I rubbed my arms while I talked to him, "What is this? I feel so calm. I feel good."

He smirked at me, seating himself on the couch, the one word that would change my life forever floating out of his mouth like it was nothing; "Heroin."


	6. Long Gone Day

**AN: all my love goes out to the chixxors ( SPK ). SHOVE THAT DRESSING, and don't stop reviewing.**

The cold leather of the seat pressed against HIS dirty t-shirt as I slid forward, my nose pressed against the foggy window. The morning world rolled by quickly; the drug store parking lots we'd torn through, trash cans we'd knocked over, rubbish sprawled on the pavement. The places where I'd fallen behind him.

I glanced down at my fingers, instantly reminded of Sango. I wondered if it had all really happened. Images of her pink glitter polish and the crowded table flashed through my mind, his smirking lips, the pale face framed by curtains of black hair. Eyes that had seemed to glow red as he lifted me up into the heroin dream cloud that I had sworn never to get involved with.

Naraku.

All I had for proof were the marks on my arms, and his phone number, written on my hand with a sharpie.

I could have smeared it right then. I could have gotten rid of Naraku forever; banished Sango, The Underworld, the drugs, into memory. I could have walked back into my apartment, settled down on the couch, and picked up Kagome's magazine. I could have ignored the note they left for me on the table. I could have stayed clean. I could have drifted back into my vegetable state of non-living, beating myself up day in and day out about the breakup. But I didn't.

Instead, I pulled out a pen from my purse and copied the phone number onto a piece of paper so I could call him up later.

Sliding the paper back into some dark corner of the purse, my fingertips brushed the sharp end of a syringe. I shuddered at the memory.

Naraku had told me with the same devil's grin on his face that I'd be wanting one of them soon enough, despite my refusal to take one home with me.

And now my veins called out for the drug.

I didn't want to be an addict. I'd always thought of addicts as people that curled up in some dark, dusty corner of their filthy apartments and got high all day. So in my eyes, Naraku wasn't an addict. I glanced down at the needle. Naraku was fun, handsome, and social. He just liked to get a little buzzed sometimes.

I could deal with that.

I repeated it in my head like a mantra, a holy prayer, God's whining little voice toying with me, persuading me. _Just a little buzz. I'm not addicted. I'm not addicted._

I turned and surveyed the rows of people seated around me.

Pre-teens head-banging to something their parents hated, blaring from the oversized headphones they wore as they tried to finish their homework at the very last minute. The elderly hunched over and leaning on each other, drooling on the person beside them, dreaming of their younger years. Stiff men in three-piece suits on their way to work, all with identical briefcases. Housewives smoothing their skirts over and over again, anxiously awaiting the morning sales at WalMart.

There was nothing to worry about.

_Just a little buzz. This is only my second time. _

I smiled, seeing that Naraku had already filled up the needle for me. I plunged it into my arm, and again it was euphoria.

Just when I thought the pleasure was dying out it would come back twice as strong-- in waves, rolling over my entire body, invading my bloodstream.

"This IS heaven," I said aloud, to no one in particular.

And then I fell asleep, the needle limply falling from my arm and onto the dirty floor below.


	7. Oh, Little Sister

I woke as the bus lurched to a stop, bleary eyes looking out to see my building. I groggily gathered my purse into my arms and left the bus, stumbling down the steps in my sleep/drug-induced stupor. I was unlocking the door to my apartment before I even realized I was awake.

24B. Home sweet home.

I glanced at the couch as I entered, then the entire room, completely empty and lacking company. Kagome had taken her goddamned magazine. They'd left me a note on the coffee table.

Dear Kikyou-

Where were you last night you could have at least called to cancel out

Call me to let me know where the hell you've been

Oh and while we were here I took the rest of my shit back you know I don't live here anymore so I figured I could take back stuff

INUYASHA

I crumbled it up and tossed it carelessly into the trash, like so much heartache, blown off like all the little things he'd left behind ( now gone, seeing as he had finally retrieved them ) , gone like a syringe full of heroin. I told myself that I didn't care anymore.

I had new friends now. A new life.

The couch sat in the center of the room, waiting for me to sit down so it could wrap me up in the soft cushions, all my hurt that I was forcing myself to prematurely leave behind, and Daytime Television soap operas once again. I literally feared that couch.

It symbolized my life for the past few months. I didn't want that life now.

Instead, I sat on the floor, rubbing my arms. Scratching at the marks that marred the pale flesh. I thought of calling Naraku, but it was too early.

I'd call later. Maybe he would want to hang out with me again.

All I knew was that I needed to talk to someone. Anyone. So I fished a cigarette, the lighter InuYasha had given me, and my cell phone out of my purse, and dialed the first number that came to mind.

"Kaede," I blew out a puff of smoke and smiled as I heard her raspy voice pick up on the other end. "It's Kikyou."

"Sis," Cooed my older sister, now in her mid-thirties, "I haven't heard from you in AGES."

"I wanted to talk to someone and I thought of you."

"Awww." Kaede shuffled a bit on the other end. "So what's up?"

"You know about InuYasha and me, right?"

"Yeah. . . ."

"Well, I decided to get my life back together again. So last night I go out to this club. . ."


	8. Suffocation

**AN: The last chapter sucked crap. I know.**

I was just getting to the part about going to Naraku's apartment and circling the dark city three times over in search of it before a wave of sleepiness cut me off. Kaede wheezed on the other end, fidgeting like she usually did with the telephone cord, not really noticing that my words were slowly dying off with incoherent mumbles.

I couldn't keep a grip on my consciousness. I blacked out.

The cell phone dropped from my hand with a neat little 'click', and in my sleep I could just barely hear Kaede's voice before we lost the connection, saying my name.

When I woke up I felt an all-too familiar softness surrounding me on every side. My head rested against one of my beloved, fluffy pillows, and I tugged at the clean sheet that covered me. Who had moved me from the floor? I looked around my bedroom, warm with early afternoon sunlight. My nightstand clock told me I'd only been asleep for an hour and twenty minutes.

"InuYasha!" I heard her bubbly voice float down the hallway from the kitchen, seeping under my door like some terrible disease that I had fallen victim to too long ago. It was definitely a terminal illness.

I heard vague mumbling as a response. Kagome giggled. "Inu," she whined, as I imagined her flushed little face with those bright blue eyes looking up at him, that face. . .

perfectly heart shaped, perfectly bright, perfectly perfect. "Shouldn't we go wake her up? She might have stuff to do today and I bet she'd be upset if she slept through her plans." What a considerate little parasite.

More mumbling.

"Shedoesnthaveanythingtodo, 'Gome." There was a clatter of pots and pans, a running faucet. Brief silence.

And then her smaller, wheedling voice, whispering "She might". Yes, this was my untreatable illness. Incurable and fatal. This was the lovechild of my jealousy.

I buried my face in the soft pillow. I would call Naraku that evening.

I had to get out of this apartment.

And just as I began to find a little bit of comfort in what could possibly be my well-calculated plans for the evening, there was a polite knocking on my door.

"Come in," I called, voice muffled by the pillow I still held against my face, a shield protecting me from the blunt of their presence.

Kagome shuffled in, InuYasha moving slowly behind her. They both stood at the end of my bed, wringing their hands like they didn't know how to ask me why I was passed out on the living room floor with unusual marks crawling up my forearms, needles in my purse, and smeared eyeshadow that I didn't bother wiping off.

InuYasha narrowed his eyes, his tone sharp and accusing. "Where the hell were you last night? You totally flaked on us."

"I was busy." I threw the pillow off, looking him in the eye. I was ready for a brief confrontation.

He looked angry. Kagome's lips were pressed into a thin, worried line as she observed us, not daring to slip her way into the conversation.

"Doing WHAT?"

I sighed haughtily, brushing off his obvious irritation like a starlet might another meaningless compliment. "Do you think I'm incapable of having a life, InuYasha? Are you my bodyguard? Are you my manager? Is it your turn to regulate my every waking movement? I think not."

He stormed over, yanking my arm out from underneath the freshly washed sheet, jerking me forward along with it. "What are THESE?" He demanded.

I knew all too well what he meant. But he didn't need that kind of advantage over me, knowing about what had happened. I decided to play the 'dumb, pissed off girl' card.

"Those are my fingers, InuYasha. They are attached to my hand. Is that alright with you?"

"You know what I mean, Kikyou. Don't be stupid."

"It's nothing." I snatched my arm back, curling up against my mattress. "And now, I'm done talking to you."


End file.
